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Germany has frozen spare parts supply to Turkish leopard 2 tanks. This when Putin and Trump are competing to lick Erdogans @ss. And 'crimes' of Kurds, past a century, are being brought up to dehumanise them to accept their slaughter easily.

Moments ago, the Afrin Self-Administration Office (a regional extension of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party) posted a statement (seen below) officially calling on the Syrian government to fulfill its duty to protect the region – a part of sovereign Syrian soil – from Turkish invasion by deploying its military.The statement did make the effort to point out that Kurdish forces had protected Afrin from terrorists and invaders for the last six years and that they would continue to do so even once the Syrian Armed Forces stepped in.

A key part of the statement reads:“We call out for the Syrian government to protect Afrin and Syria’s borders by deploying the Syrian Armed Forces to protect Afrin borders.”

YPG has also responded by going for a deeper mobilization and sending more specialized and seasoned units in afrin including some of their foreign volunteers.

ISIS is running around on both shores of the euphrates and as both YPG and SAA are focussed on other fronts leaving gaps and second line units in place. the syrian iraqi militias are holding the western shore mostly and so far managing to repel isis attacks.

There seems to be at least a chance that this could be Erdogan's unravelling. Is there any way to see that the Turkish force is bogged down and basically de-briefed I wonder. This is where a good snap decision from DT can completely turn the tables and take down Erdogan, run the Islamists out of office in Turkey etc. Where is the full moon when you need it, hain? All he has to do is impose a no-fly zone and the Kurds on the ground will de-brief the Turkish Army.

Erdo the Turk, would be Sultan of the Latter-Day-Ottomins is turning out to more of a comic rather than tragic character in history.His bumbling foreign policy is being exploited by Putin and Russia, and his open disgust for the US is dangerously increasing the possibility of an " accident" take place involving the US and its mercenary forces .How that will unfold is anyone's guess as the "Sultan" is unpredictable.His purge of professional military men may in the coming days haunt him.Perhaps like Mussolini he will one day be strung up on a meathook in a Stamboul market!

The US is really missing a bet here. First, all those dummies saying Hu Lost Turkey, are turkeys. Turkey is **NOT** going to cut off relations with US if US supports an independent Kurdistan, any more than India cut off relations because of US propping up genocidal Islamist terrorists and dictators in Pakistan.

Come to think of it, Turkey has not withdrawn from NATO, have they? THAT may very well happen, but I think that would be a positive not negative, for US because it means US can deal directly with Turkey, and in Victoria Newland's lingo, "**** the EU!".

But propping up Kurdistan at once satisfies US anti-Islamist DT vote banks, as well as US Bring Democracy To Furriners Donkey Vote-Bank. I don't think Israel has anything against Kurds (better than any other Ayrabs except the Druze, from their pov). So Israeli Vote Bank also will be happy. PLUS, a HUUUUGE military base and colony in the center of the MidEast.

I can't believe all those Strategic Thinkers in the Pentagon can't see this.

IOW, a totally 400% Accidental Strike by US F-22s and A-10s that happens to wipe out a whole column of Turkish tanks, might be a not-so-bad thing right about now.

it seems heat maps of activity released by Strava the popular running and cycling app is possible to make out military bases, patrol and exercise patterns and lay ambushes and pinpoint living areas for mortar or vbied attacks

the age of everything having a IP address and connection to cloud has its downsides...

errant husbands flying off on business trips but landing up in another ladies place for a spot of decompression therapy might also take note - "the cloud watches, the cloud knows" ... a new fitness band product niche could be called "border patrol" - geofences the hubby within bounds and locations set by the suspicious wife and if crossed, delivers a buzz, followed by the electric shock and a SMS to the wife

the child soldiers in the video i posted fit the bill for the sultan murad brigade types who fought for months north of aleppo in azaz and al-bab against the ISIS. what they lack in age and wisdom, they make up in brutality and josh to club the kuffar.

Russian interests are to drive a wedge between Turkey and the US/NATO.In the current scenario,where the Sultan is embarrassing the US no end,exposing its duplicity,supporting ISIS while supposedly fighting against it,plus his dallying with Putin,he is rapidly becoming the next Saddam Hussein of the Arab world in the eyes of the US.I mentioned this sometime ago and astonishingly,this morning on CNN,a US talking head actually suggested "removing" Erdogan as the only way forward!Watch this space.

Turkish army convoy including APCs drove thru HTS controlled Idlib in Syria heading towards AlEis, a rebel controlled frontline with Syrian gov forces &allies. Due to nearby bombing &Syrian shelling, it came to halt, turned off its lights and Later it turned back.

although the image says russians bombing, it was later clear that the syrians were bombing and not russians.. at least officially.

@ejmalrai#Turkey decided to inject around 200 soldiers and officers in Tel El-Eiss (mimicking the #USA forces in Manbij) and imposing an ipso-facto: we are here so you (Russia and Syrian Forces) respect the demarcation line with HTS & Turkish allies.…

old 2008 documentary on chechen partisans...the survivors of that phase came out and joined the global jihad..today these veteran Al-Shishani's are the elite spear of the nusra & turkiye fronts in syria

syaf + ruaf. Saraqib is the arsenal, crossroad and quila of Nusra like DEZ was for the ISIS.

if Saraqib falls entire north hama front will collapse and roll up from the rear and Idlib cannot be defended.

Saraqib will be the decisive battle for the fate of Idlib, and if the syrians win they will press on and fight for Idlib and Jisr al shugour

it will be a cagefight and the syrians will have to really dig deep for this one. the damascus front might need to be denuded of republican guard units to muster enough for a wide series of probing attacks from all directions, with the breakthrough points then reinforced for the shock units like tigers , parachute batallion and 4th repub guards div to pour in.

the parachute batallion last saw some action by dropping in to save T4 airbase just in time when the ISIS surged back to palmyra and thereafter in battles in the desert north of palmyra under tiger forces command as the tigers made their way inland and then east again to find a path to DEZ. they seem to be army HQ reserve and not seen much outside damascus. some might operate under the so called "air force intelligence" which seems to be a informal SF type unit.

@Singha, Fantastic analysis of the strategic points. Assuming that Idlib falls & Nusra is shattered, what happens to the other Jihadi units that are under the Syrian rebels? Will Nusra just hide among them? Or will they take a few nice buses to Europe?

If Idlib & Jisr al Shugour fall, will the other rebels negotiate. BTW, why aren't the Syrians wiping out the other smaller Jihadi pockets like near Jayrud or Dumayr or even Damascus? Are they quiet or under ceasefire? Aren't they tying down other Syrian units that could be freed up?

The US, turkey supported FSA, full of jihadis, is now also supported by Russia. The entire narrative carefully built by Putin for the last 17 years as supporter of international law and peace has been unravelled in one stroke. Even when the stakes were higher in Ukraine, Putin didn't waver from the path. Now to appease a jihadi turkey , Russia is ready to accommodate the worst of terrorists. Amazing

Shanmukh wrote:@Singha, Fantastic analysis of the strategic points. Assuming that Idlib falls & Nusra is shattered, what happens to the other Jihadi units that are under the Syrian rebels? Will Nusra just hide among them? Or will they take a few nice buses to Europe?

If Idlib & Jisr al Shugour fall, will the other rebels negotiate. BTW, why aren't the Syrians wiping out the other smaller Jihadi pockets like near Jayrud or Dumayr or even Damascus? Are they quiet or under ceasefire? Aren't they tying down other Syrian units that could be freed up?

ahrar al shams the other big formation is a shadow of its former self. it is more moderate than nusra. has suffered repeated thrashings, been deprived of goonda tax revenue at checkpoints and lost a lot to defections. I suspect it will slink away and sue for a settlement.

the HTS nusra has absorbed all the more virulent strains like darat izza (CIA backed and TOW equipped specialists), and many more... either they will die fighting or tiptoe into turkey.

the third set of monkeys the turkiye pasand formations - turkestani islami party, kavkaz chechens, sultan murad brigade have the other green belt east and north of aleppo (al baj area) as their new homeland should Idlib fall. they anyways have a working relationship with HTS but obey Erdogans mil intel only. or they live in the turkiye border tracts as manchu bannermen and neo settlers.

damascus suburbs have a lot of civilians held hostage by the rebels in these enclaves. some are under ceasefire and UN sends food which the rebels also eat. no attack can done due to collateral risk. some areas are depopulated but heavily mined and defended like east ghouta. weapon smugglers from jordan side bring in arms through the countryside and the syrians have scant manpower to police all these vast tracts so it goes on. bad optics if they pound it to the ground, only US is allowed to do such things like raqqa and mosul, for the rest its human rights no can do. if you remember the jihadis below up the damascus water supply headworks in wadi barada a year ago and SAA had great difficulty in capturing that valley and repairing the headworks tunnel. such infra seems like a informal agreement between assad and the jihadis to leave unpoliced and unharmed and things like food supplies, syriatel cellphone network, water works continue to function across the lines unless some monkey pulls a stunt like wadi barada. cellphones worked nicely even in ISIS areas and maintained by syriatel, which accounts for the constant updates from the ISIS front troops also. there was even a bus from beirut -> damascus -> raqqa

a long war at a sub-caliber intensity makes for these strange tactical arrangements